This invention relates to a machine which uses thermal transfer marking paper for the thermal transfer of the manufacturer's name, serial number, date of manufacture, belt size, and other indicia onto an endless belt or onto a tube-shaped belt material (hereafter also referred to simply as an endless belt) prior to its being cut into specified widths.
The thermal transfer of indicia, such as those described above, onto an endless belt is accomplished using marking paper which has been printed so as to make thermal transfer possible. Because there are many different belt indicia, it is common to use multiple sheets of different varieties of marking paper. For wide belts, the thermal transfer is made onto the belt itself, and for narrow belts, it is made onto tube-shaped belt material prior to its being cut into specified widths. For this reason, in order to perform thermal transfer onto belt material, the size of the characters to be indicated must be considerably smaller than the width of the endless belt which will be the final product, and repeated lines of the same indicia must be transferred so that at least one line of the complete indicia is transferred onto each endless belt after cutting.
Until now, machines having a construction such as that described below have been used as thermal transfer devices for the transfer of indicia such as those mentioned above. As shown in FIG. 6, after an endless belt A is positioned with the surface to be imprinted facing outwardly on a freely revolving belt attachment roller 2', the belt A on the belt attachment roller 2' is squeezed by a thermal roller 6' and compressed at a fixed pressure P, and then the thermal roller 6' revolves at a fixed slow speed in order to slowly revolve the belt A. Then, a marking paper B is inserted and passed through the nip formed between the contact surfaces of the thermal roller 6' and the belt A, and the indicia printed on the marking paper B is thermally transferred onto the surface of the belt.
With the thermal transfer machines of the prior art described above, the operator had to manually insert the marking paper between the contact surfaces of the thermal roller and the belt, and, because it is common for multiple sheets of marking paper to be used, the operator had to remain close to the thermal transfer device until the completion of the thermal transfer operation. Thus, during that time, the operator was not able to perform other tasks, such as the preparation of the marking paper for transfer to the next belt, and work efficiency was extremely poor. Moreover, because the marking paper was inserted by hand while the thermal roller and the belt were revolving, the marking paper could easily become misaligned or wrinkled, thus resulting in the transfer of a slanted or distorted indicia onto the belt. In addition, there was also the danger of the operator's hand becoming caught between the thermal roller and the belt, creating a safety problem as well. Furthermore, because the manually inserted marking paper fell onto the floor after passing between the thermal roller and the belt, the used marking paper had to be recovered, and this recovery involved further labor.